Company Chaplains a Booming Business

NOTTINGHAM, Pa. —  When Helen Counts’ husband of 36 years killed himself last August, help and compassion came from unexpected quarters: The chaplain at the company where she works.

Mark Pulliam conducted the service, showed up daily to offer comfort and regularly wrote notes to Counts and her daughter.

“Without Mark, I don’t know where I would be now,” Counts said in a trembling voice recently as she looked fondly at Pulliam. “Hiring the chaplains has been the best thing the company has done for its employees.”

A number of companies--from huge corporations to tiny shops--are starting to use chaplains in their employee assistance programs. The ministers spend several hours a week at the company or meet with staffers outside the workplace.

Diana Dale, head of the Institute of Worklife Ministry in Houston, said there are several thousand industrial ministers in the workplace.

They can befriend employees in a way managers cannot.

“They’re able to do more than I can do by myself, as far as working with our people, helping our people and meeting their needs emotionally when they’re going through a crisis,” said Earl Patrick, president of Jim Stewart Realtors in Waco, Tex.

At Herr Foods Inc., where Pulliam has been a full-time chaplain for two years, he has discussed topics ranging from child-rearing, caring for aging parents and marital problems to depression, finances and Christmas shopping. He also performs weddings and burials and makes hospital visits.

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“We enhance the value of people as you care for them, as you listen to them, as you show compassion and concern and love in the workplace. That’s what we’re all about, creating a warmer, more user-friendly workplace,” said Gil Stricklin, founder of Marketplace Ministries Inc., which employs Pulliam.

Qualifications for the job vary from company to company. Stricklin requires at least two years of full-time ministerial work. Dale seeks people with a master’s degree in divinity and advanced supervised training.

Counselors have voiced concern about placing such responsibility in the hands of people with no professional training.

“In our training, if you’re working with someone in a counseling situation, it’s not OK to be their friend, too, because it gets all tangled up in what’s a friend and what’s good counseling practice,” said Gail Robinson, president of the American Counseling Assn. and a licensed professional counselor.

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Despite the reservations about training, the industry is booming. Stricklin, a retired colonel who worked six years with Billy Graham, said his service has doubled in the past three years.

Stricklin started his ministry in 1984 with one employee--himself. Today, with a projected budget of $2.4 million for 1997, Marketplace Ministries contracts out 300 Protestant chaplains to 160 companies in 30 states, working with 110,000 employees and family members. A minister makes $35,000 to $40,000 a year.

Why has his service been a success?

“We say that everybody’s got a problem, they just had a problem or they’re getting ready to have a problem because that’s life. And just to have somebody there who’s going to listen to you, somebody who’s going to love you, somebody who’s going to accept you . . . all these things are very important,” he said.